• meta-synthesis
• About
  About meta-synthesis Reviews Products & Services Contact Us FAQs
• Our Websites
  The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables The Chemogenesis Web Book The Chemical Thesaurus Chemistry Tutorials & Drills The Truncated Tetrahedron Orange Gate Journal George Truefitt FRIBA Mac Ruff's PNG Sketchbooks MRL's Bow Tuning Page
• Web Book Chapters
  Web Book Home Page | Chemogenesis Main Index Foreword:  Chemogenesis & Chemical Education Part I   Atoms | Elements | Periodic Tables 1.1  Introduction to Chemogenesis 1.2  Nucleosynthesis of The Elements 1.3  The Segrè Chart 1.4  Quantum Numbers to Periodic Tables 1.5  The Periodic Table: What Is It Showing? 1.6  The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables 1.7  Periodicity Part II   Structure | Bonding | Material Type 2.1  Mono-Bond Typed Binary Compounds 2.2  Binary Compound Synthlet 2.3  Electronegativity 2.4  van Arkel-Ketelaar Triangles of Bonding 2.5  Tetrahedra of Structure, Bonding & Material Type 2.6  Structure, Bonding & Material Synthlet 2.7  The Classification of Matter: Chemical Stuff Part III   Interactions | Reactions | Mechanisms 3.1  The Chemogenesis Analysis: An Overview 3.2  Lewis and Brønsted Models of Acidity 3.3  The Hard Soft [Lewis] Acid Base Principle 3.4  Main Group Elemental Hydrides 3.5  Five Hydrogen Probe Experiments 3.6  Congeneric Dots, Series & Planars 3.7  Quantifying Congeneric Behaviour 3.8  Ligand Replacement Congeneric Series 3.9  Congeneric Array Interactions 3.10  Emergence of Organic Chemistry 3.11  Congeneric Array Database 3.12  The Five Reaction Chemistries 3.13  Lewis Acids & Lewis Bases: A New Analysis 3.14  The Lewis Acid/Base Interaction Matrix 3.15  Patterns in Reaction Chemistry Poster 3.16  Lewis Acid/Base Interaction Matrix Database 3.17  Nucleophiles, Bases & The Fluoride Ion 3.18  Redox Chemistry 3.19  Redox Chemistry Synthlet 3.20  Radical Chemistry 3.21  Diradical Chemistry 3.22  Photochemistry 3.23  Species/Species Interactions 3.24  The Simplest Mechanistic Step: STAD 3.25  Unit & Compound Mechanistic Steps 3.26  The Mechanism Matrix 3.27  Addition To A Double Bond Synthlet 3.28  Pericyclic Reaction Chemistry Part IV   Chemical Theory 4.1  Why Do Chemical Reactions Occur? 4.2a  Thermochemistry: List Reactions Synthlet 4.2b  Thermochemistry: Play With Reaction Synthlet 4.2c  Thermochemistry: Bulid A Reaction Synthlet 4.3  Timeline of Structural Theory 4.4  Modern Lewis Theory 4.5  Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion: VSEPR 4.6  Diatomic Species by Molecular Orbital Theory 4.7  Polyatomic Species: Molecular Orbitals 4.8  Organic π-Systems 4.9  Functional Group Database Part V   Complexity & Emergence 5.1  Chemistry & Complexity: Systems 5.2  Linear Chemistry Systems 5.3  Chemical Systems Prone to Complexity Part VI   Extras 6.1  Chemogenesis Videos 6.2  Chemical Thesaurus Reaction Chemistry Database 6.3  Paper: Chemogenesis 6.4  Paper: Electronegativity as a Basic Elemental Property (FoC) 6.5  Workshop: What is Chemistry? 6.6  Paper: Scientific laws, Dalton’s postulates, chemical reactions
          and Wolfram’s NKS (FoC) 6.7  Literature References & Further Reading

Periodic Table T-Shirts & more from the meta-synthesis   See More   Merch Store

The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables

There are thousands of periodic tables in web space, but this is the only comprehensive database of periodic tables & periodic system formulations. If you know of an interesting periodic table that is missing, please contact the database curator: Mark R. Leach Ph.D. The database holds information on periodic tables, the discovery of the elements, the elucidation of atomic weights and the discovery of atomic structure (and much, much more).

History of the Discovery of the Group 18 (erstwhile Group 0) Elements

John Marks has provided a concise history of the discovery of the Group 18 elements and the element name"Nitron/Radon".

Radioactivity was discovered by Becquerel in 1896 and the Curies noted transferred radioactivity rather like the induction of electric or magnetic charge. Radon was discovered in 1900, by Dorn in Halle; Rutherford discovered thoron in 1899; and Debierne discovered actinon in 1903. The time-line is:

• 1868 Lockyer observed the spectrum of helium in the solar corona
• 1894 Ramsay discovers argon
• 1895 Ramsay isolates helium
• 1898 Ramsay discovers krypton, neon & xenon
• 1899 Curie observes an emanation from radium
• 1899 Rutherford observes an emanation from thorium
• 1900 Dorn identifies radon
• 1902 Rutherford & Soddy characterize thoron
• 1903 Rutherford & Soddy isolate radon
• 1903 Debierne observes an emanation from actinium
• 1904 Ramsay names the isotopic emanations exactinio, exradio & exthorio and surmises they are one element, probably an inert gas
• 1908 Professor Sydney Young’s "Stoichiometry" has a periodic table shows niton, Z = 86
• 1909 Ramsay characterizes niton as a group 0 inert gas
• 1910 Cameron's "Radiochemistry" describes the radioactive displacement law
• 1912 The name "niton" accepted by the International Commission for Atomic Weights
• 1913 Soddy expounds theory of isotopes
• 1913 Rydberg's periodic table has Nt (86) for the last inert gas
• 1919 Irving Langmuir's PT has Nt as the last inert gas
• 1922 Niels Bohr’s PT has Nt (86) as the last inert gas
• 1923 GN Lewis’s PT has Nt as the last inert gas
• 1924 CRC’s Handbook of Chemistry and Physics has niton as the last member of Group 0

So niton (from Latin nitens = shining) was noticed by the Curies in 1899 as an emanation from radium. That same year Rutherford noted an identical emanation from thorium, and in 1903 Debierne discovered the same emanation from actinium. All three ('radon', 'thoron' and 'actinon') were identified as an element by Ramsay in 1904 and characterized by him in 1909.

Ramsay named the element niton after its most prominent property viz. that it glowed in the dark.

With the introduction of Soddy's isotopes, it became clear that: thoron was Nt-220, radon was Nt-222 & actinon was Nt-219.

There are natural traces of other isotopes (e.g. Nt-217, Nt-218) from beta disintegration of astatine. So "radon" was just one isotope of niton.

The foregoing history of niton is uncontroversial and the name niton, Nt, for Z = 86 dates at least from Professor Young´s textbook of stoichiometry in 1908.

In 1912, the name 'niton' was adopted by the International Commission for Atomic weights. Rydberg's PT of 1913 has Nt as the last inert gas, as does Irving Langmuir's PT of 1919, Niels Bohr's PT of 1922, GN Lewis's PT of 1923 and even the CRC's Handbook of Chemistry and Physics in 1924.

John Marks concludes:

"Niton, Nt, for Z = 86, was thus established by its discoverers and accepted by the chemistry (and physics) establishment. Radon, Rn, is an error perpetuated by IUPAC [amongst its many sins].

"Radon is an isotope. We do not refer to hydrogen as 'protium', so why are we referring to niton as 'radon'?"

© Mark R. Leach Ph.D. 1999 –

Queries, Suggestions, Bugs, Errors, Typos...

If you have any:

Queries
Comments
Suggestions
Suggestions for links
Bug, typo or grammatical error reports about this page,

please contact Mark R. Leach, the author, using mark@meta-synthesis.com

This free, open access web book is an ongoing project and your input is appreciated.